Brady's magical wheelchair

As ghosts, fairies and super heroes flew from door to door in the pursuit of sweet treats, Brady cruised around in style behind the wheel of his new Big Red Car.

The shiny red automobile was an exact replica of the one used on the popular children’s show, The Wiggles, and totally enveloped the wheelchair Brady uses to get around.

Born the day after Christmas, birth complications saw the infant rushed to Kingston General Hospital and from there to Sick Kids in Toronto.

Brady’s grandmother, Judy Wilson, still has difficultly talking about the events that unfolded after they were shown a scan of the newborn’s brain.

“We saw on the screen a big hole in his brain and there was other smaller holes,” she recalled. Judy said he had lost a fifth of his brain and doctor’s knew immediately that Brady was going to be blind, that he wouldn’t be able to speak and wouldn’t be able to walk. And that’s if he survived at all, an outcome which was far from certain.

It was suggested they take him off life support, place him in palliative care and let him die, said Judy.

“They had casts of his hands and his feet to give to us to remember Brady by,” she recalled, having to pause a moment as she began to cry. “I’m sorry, I can usually talk about this without crying now.”

A few moments passed before she could continue.

“We weren’t expecting him to live. Brady left the world three times before deciding to stay.”

In the end they decided to bring him back to Belleville and spend what time they had left with him at home. That was almost seven years ago.

“They warned us if we took him home he may not live long,” said Judy. “But this little boy has surprised everyone.

“He’s quite amazing and I tell him all the time that he’s one of the bravest little boys that I know.

“I can’t imagine being without him.

“He is happy, he is genuinely happy.”

That happiness was on display early last week when Brady was first shown his Halloween costume for this year.

The car was built by a group of Loyalist manufacturing students as the part of the Magic Wheelchair project.

Magic Wheelchair was founded in 2015 by Ryan and Lana Weimer. The Oregon couple have five children, three of whom were born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy and require the use of wheelchairs for the entirety of their lives.

Each Halloween, Ryan would make elaborate costumes for his sons. Once news of those costumes spread, he began receiving requests from parents around the world asking if he would transform their kids’ wheelchairs into ‘magic’.

In 2015 they started making those requests a reality. In 2016 a group of Loyalist students decided to bring a little of that magic to Canada, starting the first international Magic Wheelchair project.

Spearheaded by three members of the W. Garfield Weston Foundation Fellowship — Stephen Zammitti, Cameron MacLean and Rebecca Sweet — the small group spent hours designing and building Brady’s costume

“We didn’t do a very good job on tracking the hours at times, but it’s not unreasonable to say Steven and Rebecca put in over 120 hours each,” said MacLean about the actual build time.

MacLean said the time was worth it when he saw Brady’s reaction to the costume during a test fitting.

“Brady saw it and immediately started to just smile and rock in his chair, rocked the whole time we put it around him and was a little sad when it came off because we still had to do some final bits on it.”

Judy said her only response to the finished project was “wow”.

“And after we came home, my husband and I would look at each other and still say wow,” she said.

“Even though he can’t communicate, there’s more going on in his little brain than he can get out.”

Brady shows he’s happy by “bopping” in his chair and smiling.

“And he was doing a lot of that,” said Judy with a chuckle. “He was smiling and a-bopping. He knew what was going on.”

On Halloween night MacLean and Zammitti — dressed in Loyalist mascot costumes — walked with Brady and family as they went trick or treating.

And that’s when the magic really happened, said MacLean.

Brady, who can’t get up to a great many doorways due to his wheelchair and in the past has had has to rely on family members to get candy for him — had homeowners so intrigued by his costume they were coming to him to put treats in his bag.

“Brady got to participate in Halloween like every other child does, for the first time in his life on Tuesday night,” said MacLean.

In one instance as they were walking away from a house, the owner walked back over to them saying he had no idea Brady was in a wheelchair and thought it was just “a really cool costume”.

“To have broken down that barrier, where a kid who normally when people look at him the very first thing they see is his wheelchair, to flip that to being the very last thing that they saw, that was the reward right there,” said MacLean.

“People didn’t see him as a kid in a wheelchair,” said Judy. “They just saw him as another trick or treater, a kid out having fun.

“His chair disappeared.”

Both MacLean and the Wilson family are hoping the college will continue the Magic Wheelchair project with other children in the future. MacLean said he’d love to see other school’s or community groups take up the cause either directly or through sponsorship.

Brady will get another ride in his Big Red Car later this month at the front of the Loyalist College float in this year’s Belleville Santa Claus Parade.

After that the costume will be refitted with a new seat and will live, at least for a while, in Brady’s playroom.

“So when he needs to get out of his chair and just sit and do things, he can sit in his Big Red Car still,” said MacLean